I can not get into the Boot OS X after update 05 October (Fusion Drive)

[Vinicius P. Miranda]

Guys, my High Sierra just updated, it looks like they've released some fixes, and I can not get into the system anymore. I know had several issues with people who have Fusion Drive, including me. When I installed the High Sierra, I had the same problem, I coulded only install in a notebook HD that I have here, then cloning to the Fusion Drive. But now that the system has updated, I cannot login anymore, and I can not do the same procedure because I would lose the college files that are on Fusion Drive.

 

Can someone help me? Unfortunately I'm sure some people will have the same problem.

 

I use Clover 4233

Minha EFI: EFI - Vinicius (Problem Fusion Drive).zip

 

I get stuck here when I boot in Boot OS X (to enter the system that is on Fusion Drive) and also in the new boot Recovery that came up.

[sailor25462]

Same here 

 

Only way to install onto fusion drive was to do it on a plain old HDD and copy it (back).

 

I can confirm, the update breaks this installation with error to load kernel cache (0xe).

Had to use time machine back and recover.

 

It's basically the same error I had when trying to install 10.13. directly on a fusion drive.

 

My gut feeling is that there' an intermediate "phase" of installation / update when it makes a restart and has to finish processing of the installation. The boot itself is not broken, I can still boot into the installation using the same clover EFI source.

I do not know enough about the installation or update process, but I would bet that it's all about an intermediate step which fails on fusion drives.

[thy4205]

I found a little trick by accident. Find a spare disk and install High Sierra on it. The kernel Cache error can be fixed by running the a terminal command on the newly installed system.

 

kextcache -update-volume /YOUR_VOLUME_NAME 

 

If you like you can 'touch' the kext folder if you like but it doesn't seem to do much. (I don't think it is related but it never hurts)

 

To install the update, you can find the pkg install file here

 

Run pkg file from the newly installed system, change the installation path to the fusion drive volume, it will install straight away, then you can return to the newly updated system. 

Running pkg installs the update straight away, without creating a pre-boot environment which clover fails to boot into. Seems to be a High Sierra specific problem though.

[sailor25462]

This indeed works! But in my case, after the update, I had no copy/Paare anymore. How about your rig?

[thy4205]

This indeed works! But in my case, after the update, I had no copy/Paare anymore. How about your rig?

Nothing is wrong except my GTX660 Glitching like hell. Can you explain your problem a little more?

[sailor25462]

Actually the paste function is not working. Sounds strange, is strange. But it seems I’m not the first.

[HBP]

you have to understand how the Fusion drive/Any soft raid drive works with OSX, on your Base drive, the SSD or Spinning disk you will have a 3rd disk partition. that partition is the booster/boot partition for the raid. if you have Issues with unable to boot due to boot cache, then you need to mount that 3rd partition and update the prelinkedkernel on it. because that diskXs3 is the only thing that Clover or Ozmosis sees until the prelinked kernel takes over and initializes the software raid.

 

I have been running Fusion Drives since their inception and the one thing I can tell you is that if you don't respect that 3rd partition you are fracked.

 

and finely, something I learned long ago, make a copy of that prelinkedkernel somewhere safe, because you can always point the software to that kernel to boot (wether its on your Clover Partition or a thumb drive, it's a little bit more work, but it is your insurance against this happening.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

HBP

[Vinicius P. Miranda]

you have to understand how the Fusion drive/Any soft raid drive works with OSX, on your Base drive, the SSD or Spinning disk you will have a 3rd disk partition. that partition is the booster/boot partition for the raid. if you have Issues with unable to boot due to boot cache, then you need to mount that 3rd partition and update the prelinkedkernel on it. because that diskXs3 is the only thing that Clover or Ozmosis sees until the prelinked kernel takes over and initializes the software raid.

 

I have been running Fusion Drives since their inception and the one thing I can tell you is that if you don't respect that 3rd partition you are fracked.

 

and finely, something I learned long ago, make a copy of that prelinkedkernel somewhere safe, because you can always point the software to that kernel to boot (wether its on your Clover Partition or a thumb drive, it's a little bit more work, but it is your insurance against this happening.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

HBP

It's been about 3 or 4 years since I used Fusion Drive, and that was the first time I had the problem. Do you think the clover that is not mounting the disXs3 partition? Do you know step-by-step I can do to solve this problem? I saved the "prelinkedkernel" but I do not know what to do with it.

[HBP]

It's been about 3 or 4 years since I used Fusion Drive, and that was the first time I had the problem. Do you think the clover that is not mounting the disXs3 partition? Do you know step-by-step I can do to solve this problem? I saved the "prelinkedkernel" but I do not know what to do with it.

from any os that will read hfs+, mount the diskXs3, there will be 2 folders in it, the disk you want to mount:

 

3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk0s3

after Boot OS X is mounted go to the com.apple.boot.(Y) where Y is the random letter Apple has assigned the boot directory.

inside that folder is 3 folders, the one you care about is System. Inside com.apple.boot.(Y)/System is Library/PrelinkedKernels. and inside that folder is the location to put your prelinkedkernel.

 

after replacing that file you should be able to boot the fusion/raid drive without any issues.

 

The other files of note on that partition are:

/com.apple.boot.(Y)/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist. <-- your real Boot.plist for the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi  <-- the real boot.efi or the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist. <-- Anytime a guide says to edit the PlatformSupport.plist this is the one to edit.

 

that sums up the important/editable files and locations on the Fusion/Raid reboot volume.

 

if you need more assistance let me know. also let me know if my explanation was sufficient to get you back up and running.

 

HBP

[HBP]

Same here 

 

Only way to install onto fusion drive was to do it on a plain old HDD and copy it (back).

 

 

 

in about 2-3 weeks having done extensive testing on my failover drive (installed and updated to 10.13 APFS) I will be updating/installing  on my main fusion drive.  if your interested in that progress I can give you the steps I take to make the install directly onto the Fusion Drive.

 

HBP

[sailor25462]

in about 2-3 weeks having done extensive testing on my failover drive (installed and updated to 10.13 APFS) I will be updating/installing  on my main fusion drive.  if your interested in that progress I can give you the steps I take to make the install directly onto the Fusion Drive.

 

HBP

 

Definitely interested!

[Vinicius P. Miranda]

from any os that will read fat32, mount the diskXs3, there will be 2 folders in it, the disk you want to mount:

after Boot OS X is mounted go to the com.apple.boot.(Y) where Y is the random letter Apple has assigned the boot directory.

inside that folder is 3 folders, the one you care about is System. Inside com.apple.boot.(Y)/System is Library/PrelinkedKernels. and inside that folder is the location to put your prelinkedkernel.

 

after replacing that file you should be able to boot the fusion/raid drive without any issues.

 

The other files of note on that partition are:

/com.apple.boot.(Y)/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist. <-- your real Boot.plist for the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi  <-- the real boot.efi or the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist. <-- Anytime a guide says to edit the PlatformSupport.plist this is the one to edit.

 

that sums up the important/editable files and locations on the Fusion/Raid reboot volume.

 

if you need more assistance let me know. also let me know if my explanation was sufficient to get you back up and running.

 

HBP

in about 2-3 weeks having done extensive testing on my failover drive (installed and updated to 10.13 APFS) I will be updating/installing  on my main fusion drive.  if your interested in that progress I can give you the steps I take to make the install directly onto the Fusion Drive.

 

HBP

Im took me a while to answer because I have not done the tests yet. I bought a new SSD, and it should arrive on Friday, October 19th. Over the weekend I'll test and leave a return. Thanks for help HBP.

[Vinicius P. Miranda]

from any os that will read hfs+, mount the diskXs3, there will be 2 folders in it, the disk you want to mount:

after Boot OS X is mounted go to the com.apple.boot.(Y) where Y is the random letter Apple has assigned the boot directory.

inside that folder is 3 folders, the one you care about is System. Inside com.apple.boot.(Y)/System is Library/PrelinkedKernels. and inside that folder is the location to put your prelinkedkernel.

 

after replacing that file you should be able to boot the fusion/raid drive without any issues.

 

The other files of note on that partition are:

/com.apple.boot.(Y)/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist. <-- your real Boot.plist for the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi  <-- the real boot.efi or the Fusion drive,

/System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist. <-- Anytime a guide says to edit the PlatformSupport.plist this is the one to edit.

 

that sums up the important/editable files and locations on the Fusion/Raid reboot volume.

 

if you need more assistance let me know. also let me know if my explanation was sufficient to get you back up and running.

 

HBP

HBP, I did not succeed. I put the new SSD, I mounted the Fusion Drive, I boot the High Sierra through the flash drive, I made the first installation (the fast one that takes about 2 minutes), but when it reboots, the partition does not appear to boot to finish the installation.

So I followed his steps, I went into another hd with the HS, I mounted DiskXs3 (I mounted both the SSD and the HDD) to put the "prelinkedkernel", but it was already there, and the path is not totally what you said. I'll leave a print screen to show.

Even replacing the prelinkedkernel did not work. I kept failing to see the correct partition mounted on the clover.

 

Is this a Clover problem or an HS problem?

[HBP]

See the attached picture to see the directory structure for where to put the prelinkedkernel. the additional folder's are also shown so that you can recreate them into a working disk.

 

please note that the com.apple.recovery.boot directory is used to bootstrap into the recovery/repair partition if you do not have this folder then you do not have the (recovery disk option)

 

HBP

[HBP]

to make that drive bootable you must recreate that directory structure in my last post with the pictures.

 

HBP

[sailor25462]

Dear's,

 

Did anyone try and successfully install the 10.13.2 combo update to the hack fusion drive?

 

Just wanted to ask before jumping into the cold water myself... 

 

[update] It appears to me that the update will start to install, reboot, continue to install (i.e. with about 14-16 minutes to go) and then, after about maybe 3-4 minutes, finish boot into GUI. However, the update seems to have not completed, release 17A405 still shown and the combo update still listed under available updates. I also get an error that some updates could not be installed automatically.

Thus, installation on fusion drive fails. Tried it twice, automatically from app store and manually from downloaded combo update. 

 

[update 2] Still had to use super duper smart update (shared apps and users) to make a lean clone of my installation (approx. 40GB) to a spare disk an apply the combo update there. Still seems the 2nd phase boot entry (install image/EFI boot entry) does not appear, subsequently I couldn't boot into install option. This skipped the main installation and jumped to the last (3rd) phase of completing the installation. so it remains to be the same issue as I had with the HS installation/upgrade. However, restoring the files with super duper form the spare drive to my main drive went smoothly.